Thursday, May 03, 2007

I'm putting my son to bed the other night, when he looks up at me and says …

“Daddy, can you help me tomorrow to build a contraption?”

“Contraption?” Where the Hell did he learn that word? Half of my co-workers probably wouldn’t know what the heck a 'contraption' is!

I decided to press on….

“Sure, we can build a contraption tomorrow. What do you have in mind?”.

He tells me, “Well, I need some Thomas the Tank Engine train tracks, your old yo-yo, some jelly beans, and the big electric fan that’s in the closet.”.

Keep in mind that my son is only 4. He floored me with this odd assortment of knick-knacks.

Thinking that he was half-loopy with sleep, I tucked him in with assurances that tomorrow we would build the contraption, thinking it would long be forgotten by morning.

Not a chance.

At 7AM, I am suddenly awakened with “Daddy, come quick! It’s an emergency!”.

Usually this means we are headed for a Pee-Pee Emergency, so I get my ass out of bed and head to his bedroom.

But pee-pee was not to be the culprit of his anxiety this day….

“Daddy, let’s start building my contraption!”.

So, half-asleep, we head out to his playroom, where he proceeds to take a length of his Thomas train tracks and assemble them in a straight line of track, and lays it on the floor.

Then he takes my old yo-yo that I had stashed in my nightstand, and places it standing up on its end onto the train tracks, so it can roll.

At this point I am pretty baffled.

Now he begs me to get the big electric fan out of the closet. It’s one of those big oscillating fans that sits on a big stand, and is probably 5 feet tall.

“Daddy, plug it in and hold it up close to the yo-yo! Quick, Daddy! The contraption is almost done!”.

So, I do as I am told, and hold the fan up next to the yo-yo, and he reaches in with his little hands and turns the fan on HI.

Once the fan gets up to full power, the wind from the fan starts to make the yo-yo roll slowly down the train tracks. The yo-yo, guided by the grooves on the tracks, continues to roll down the length of the track, until it rolls off the end.

Still not getting it, I look over to my son who is smiling from ear to ear.

“It works!” he yells, jumping up and down. “It really works!”.

As for the Jelly beans, he tells me they are his reward for building such a good contraption, and proceeds so shove a handful into his little mouth...